‘Again, Harder’ captures being part of an in crowd made up of those on the outskirts

In a 2021 episode of Euphoria, Jules, played by trans actor Hunter Schafer, is at a therapy session. She waxes poetic about her trans womanhood. “Without the self-criticism, I’d be lost,” Jules says, to which her therapist offers her a newfound point of view with a simple possibility: “Or free.” Trans women in America often teeter on these two realities: a feeling of entrapment and release. Alice Stoehr’s newest book, Again, Harder extrapolates the many alternate storylines this notion can take on.

Again, Harder contains a heap of tales about trans women in a Midwestern town. Despite being a series of short stories, the cast of trans women push, probe and love in the same universe; many make appearances in one another’s stories. A couple is put to the test when one fights from sinking further into her depressive episode; a hookup-app user reconciles with men projecting their hang-ups on to her as both a source of her hurt and pleasure; a suicidal writer finds herself being seduced by a commune of trans separatists; a polyamorous triad goes on vacation, as do their expectations of one another.

At large, Again, Harder shines light on what happens in a society when trans women are systematically left with only one another to turn to in times of tension, even when the tensions emerge amongst their circles of sisterhood. Through themes of sex, envy, power and defeat, Stoehr illuminates just how real shit gets for trans women who have nothing and everything to lose.

Having already self-published four books prior, this release marks Stoehr’s first book backed by a publisher: The Feminist Press, a New York City-based non-profit literary publisher of the City University of New York dedicated to publishing marginalized voices in an effort to move the needle toward social justice. Almost all of the short stories of Again, Harder have appeared throughout her last four self-published short-story collections.

Stoehr’s stories are eerily believable. For example, in “Nascency,” protagonist Sean contemplates their transition in the face of poverty.

“If they lost this job, they were fucked. They worried about how much pain they were experiencing, but visiting the urgent care was too expensive. Their throat was swollen, and their arm had bruised to the color of Concord grape. They microwaved some water to make hot chocolate. Their pained reflection swam beneath the vapor rising from the mug. They had to live in this body for their whole time on earth. Lying in bed, they drank the hot chocolate, every sneeze making them hurt worse,” Stoehr writes.

Nearly 800 anti-trans bills have been introduced on the legislative floor in the U.S. this year —with almost 50 already passing into law—while 57 percent of Americans believe the U.S. is in a recession. It’s not shocking that a character like Sean, who is desperate for a trip to urgent care, would rather grin and bear pain for the sake of saving money—let alone start their transition. 

@xtramagazine The New York Times often writes about trans issues—but they rarely quote actual trans people in their coverage. That’s according to a new analysis by Assigned Media, which tracked news coverage of trans issues across 10 U.S. publications between January and April 2026 Assigned Media identified 214 stories from the New York Times that contained either the words “trans,” “transgender,” “gender identity,” “gender ideology” or “biological sex” during that time window. For comparison, Assigned Media found 130 stories in those same parameters by the Associated Press and 110 by the Washington Post. It’s important to note that those numbers correlate to a wide range of coverage areas: including news articles, op-eds, culture pieces and other stories that might briefly mention one of the target keywords. When it comes to stories specifically about trans issues, the NYT published 60 news stories focused on trans people, compared to 51 by the Associated Press and 25 by the Washington Post. Assigned Media was able to compare one metric across the board: how often actual trans people were quoted in stories about trans issues. The NYT came in last with just 20 percent of its news stories about the trans community quoting a trans person or representative of a trans organization. And many of the other mainstream news outlets didn’t do much better, with NBC News and the AP just ahead of them at 29 percent. This report follows a similar one from the Trans Journalists Association last year, which tracked news coverage of trans issues during Trump’s first 100 days. Their analysis found that only 30 percent of stories about Trump’s executive orders defining gender as biological sex quoted a single trans person. But not every outlet did as poorly as the NYT in Assigned Media’s findings. Fifty percent of NPR’s stories about trans issues featured at least one quote from a trans person, while independent outlet The 19th outperformed the rest with 70 percent. The New York Times has consistently been criticized for inaccurate reporting on trans issues that has had real ramifications on the rights of trans people in the U.S., so these numbers may not be too surprising. But this report helps to quantify how the newspaper disproportionately covers trans issues without trans perspectives. #lgbtqnews #mediaanalysis #transgender #assignedmedia #lgbtq ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

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In “Tendril Lullaby,” Shannon mothers Rachel, a younger barista and student whose occupation keeps her mind scattered, possibly only seeing Shannon’s “Mommie” persona as just part of a sexual and roleplay dynamic she can come to and leave. Shannon asks herself, “Isn’t it funny that I can fuck Rachel’s face, call her ‘my little girl,’ yet there’s still so much I’m unable to tell her?” Through Shannon’s point of view, Stoehr conveys her yearning to mother Rachel just as much as she wants to satisfy her pleasure. Even while observing Rachel’s breasts during sex, Shannon stumbles between admiration and jealousy, clumsily landing on a disappointing truth.

“After I cum is the worst, because then I see me and Rachel from an outside perspective: two grown-up transsexuals playing house. It empties me like a fist scooping out a jack o’lantern,” Stoehr writes as Shannon.

What Stoehr manages to do with the trans women in Again, Harder is homing in on the real nuance that being trans can be a point of connection just as much as it can be the extent of connecting; both the bridge and the troubled waters. In “A Place Where People Raise Their Kids,” Maeve goes back to her hometown for her cousin’s funeral and invites her partner Nikki for support. Along with the invitation comes a warning for Nikki, prefaced by Maeve.

Stoehr writes as Nikki: “‘It won’t be fun,’ [Maeve] said. ‘It’s in the shitty little town nobody’s ever heard of. They’ll all misgender us. You do not have to.’ 

“‘No,’ Nikki tells Maeve. ‘I want to do this with you.’”

Stoehr’s pen highlights how vulnerable it can be even for a T4T couple to have their fourth wall be broken by—perhaps for—the outside world. Their secret language, the transfemme experience, is only a secret language in the context of what Maeve’s cis family members “speak.” Maeve’s hometown visit comes with an onslaught of misgendering, and even though they are both trans, Maeve takes great consideration to protect Nikki’s peace. Perhaps Maeve herself doesn’t want Nikki to see her getting misgendered by the very people who raised her.

Funny how in helpless circumstances, one trans person getting misgendered would be better than two. Funny, how being with each other brings about comfort and a grave sense of insecurity.

“The Gate & Its Keeping” chronicles the obstacle course that is pursuing gender-affirming surgeries as a trans person in the Midwest. While at work, Rachel gets the news that her long-awaited orchiectomy has been cancelled due to the surgeon leaving the practice entirely. She later collapses the minute she gets through the front door of her home.

“She came inside zombie-eyed and didn’t make it to the bed, going instead face-down onto the carpet,” Stoehr writes.

Whether it’s rejection, a demoted plan to one’s dreams, the weight of living in a body one aches to have autonomy over or the American gender-affirming healthcare system, Stoehr wants readers to know that all of it has gravity. Perhaps literal enough to buckle one’s standing, where the body is suddenly at the mercy of the ground beneath—like if the floor weren’t solid it might even slip through that too.